Journalists and Digital Security: Some Thoughts on the NYT Leak Case

The leak investigation involving a Senate staffer and a New York Times reporter increases good sized problems about newshounds, digital security, and the ability of newshounds to shield personal resources.

The New York Times these days discovered that the FBI were investigating a former aide to the Senate Intelligence Committee, James Wolfe, for in all likelihood leaking categorized data to journalists. So a long way Wolfe has best been indicted for making fake statements to investigators about his contacts with journalists.

The research appears to had been focused on how New York Times reporter Ali Watkins, when she labored for Buzzfeed News, discovered that Russian spies had tried to recruit a former marketing consultant to President Trump, Carter Page.

Reading the New York Times article, 3 matters jumped out at us.

First, in step with the article, FBI dealers “secretly seized years’ well worth” of Watkins’ telephone and email statistics. “Among the data seized were those related to her university email address from her undergraduate years.” However, “Investigators did now not achieve the content material of the messages themselves.”

We read this to mean that the FBI obtained “metadata” including to/from and date/time facts for each name and electronic mail, in all likelihood the use of a subpoena or court order legal via the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA)/Stored Communications Act (SCA).

Many virtual protection resources, inclusive of EFF’s own Security Self-Defense (SSD) manual, emphasize the use of stop-to-quit encryption. However, it’s essential to remember the fact that even as encryption protects the contents of communications, encryption does now not masks metadata. Thus, without being attentive to or analyzing the communications themselves, government retailers can see who you talked to and while, and every so often from what vicinity.

Metadata can be extraordinarily revealing. Just the reality that Wolfe denied speaking to journalists, when the metadata showed in any other case, earned him criminal costs.

Unfortunately, absolutely covering communications metadata is nearly impossible. Creating a transient email account thru an anonymizing tool like Tor could make it extra difficult to companion that account with a selected character. Features like Signal’s Disappearing Messages will robotically delete a few metadata after a set period of time, making it harder for regulation enforcement to acquire it after the reality.

Second, the authorities acquired the contents of communications Wolfe had with newshounds over encrypted messaging apps (apparently Signal and WhatsApp).

Our bet is that the FBI got a warrant for Wolfe’s telephone and by hook or by crook accessed the apps—perhaps his cellphone wasn’t locked, marketers had his password, or they used a forensic device to pass the lock display and any device-primarily based encryption. It’s also possible investigators determined backups saved within the cloud or on a tough pressure that contained the unencrypted messages. (This difficulty has also come up in the Mueller research.)

If that is what passed off, then it is essential to take into account that even though stop-to-give up encryption thwarts interception of communications content, if that content is sitting unencrypted at an stop point—this is, in an app or a backup—then every person who has get entry to to the journalist’s or suspected supply’s phone or backup can be able see those messages. Therefore, deleting unencrypted messages is an added protection precaution. Once once more, Signal’s Disappearing Messages characteristic is an powerful manner to guard in opposition to future device searches.

Third, a non-technical question is: did the Justice Department comply with its own information media policies? These guidelines had been round for four decades and had been most these days revised in 2014 after the stunning revelation that President Obama’s Justice Department in 2013 seized two months’ worth of phone facts for journalists and editors of the Associated Press.

Among other necessities, which include first onerous different avenues of data, the policies require Justice Department investigators to provide reporters with previous note and an possibility to barter earlier than seizing their information. But this is not what occurred—because the New York Times article explains, Watkins obtained a letter from the Justice Department simplest after her phone and e mail facts had already been received.

It wouldn’t be surprising if it got here to light that the Justice Department invoked the exception to the earlier be aware requirement: where “such negotiations might pose a clean and enormous chance to the integrity of the investigation, risk grave damage to countrywide protection, or gift an coming near near hazard of loss of life or extreme bodily damage.” But these information have not been found out.

The bottom line is that journalists shouldn’t expect to continually be notified ahead of time. Accordingly, they need to take as many precautions as feasible—virtual and in any other case—to shield their confidential resources.

In addition to EFF’s Security Self-Defense (SSD) guide, we posted a virtual privateness manual to crossing the U.S. Border that newshounds would possibly locate beneficial, as newshounds were confused at airports and border crossings. Other journalism corporations have useful digital privacy and safety courses, including the ones from Freedom of the Press Foundation, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and Reporters Without Borders.

Finally, the seizure of Watkins’ smartphone and e mail records has another time highlighted the desperate want for a federal shield regulation so that the authorities can’t move after journalists—whether through their provider carriers or in courtroom—to attempt to find their private sources. Vice President Mike Pence become a lead sponsor of the Free Flow of Information Act whilst he become inside the House of Representatives.

We renew our call for Congress to pass a sturdy federal defend law to shield not best newshounds and their private sources—however also the public’s right to recognise.